Arron Kael stared at the endless rows of data flickering across his holoscreen, but the numbers had long since lost meaning. Two hundred failures. Two hundred carefully orchestrated expeditions gone wrong, swallowed by silence, darkness, and an ever-widening gulf of loss. Each attempt was another stitch in the tapestry of despair slowly strangling his life's dream.
The lab around him was quiet, lit only by the pale amber glow of power cores humming beneath the floor. Shadows stretched across cold alloy walls like the reaching fingers of ghosts. Every blinking light, every diagnostic report, every unreadable data anomaly—it all felt like mockery now.
Arron leaned forward, elbows resting on the edge of the console, his breath fogging the glass as he whispered to no one.
"Why?" The crystalline veins etched faintly along his temples pulsed in time with his thudding heart. "Why can't we cross? Why does the Door resist?"
In the silence, only the low hum of the facility answered him. But behind his closed eyes, the faces of the lost returned. Not as data points or names in a report—but as memories.
Marin, who'd laughed through every storm. Kira, whose voice once calmed every panic. Dalen, his childhood friend, whose optimism was unshakable—until it wasn't. Gone. Swallowed by that gleaming enigma they called the Door. No bodies, no signals. Just... absence.
Beyond the lab's walls, the station moved like a grieving beast, all muscle memory and muted breath. The team had grown quiet, their former camaraderie replaced with ritual-like precision and unspoken grief.
Captain Riven Kael, ever stoic, now spent his downtime methodically sharpening his blade, the rasp of steel-on-stone echoing like a metronome of controlled rage. His dark eyes held grief, yes—but deeper still, they held fire. The kind that burned on ruins.
Vema Silis, who once sang while calibrating sensors, now checked the same readings a dozen times over. Her voice, once soothing, was silent. She triple-checked the seals on suits. Rechecked the stabilizers. Refused to let another variable go overlooked.
Lior Tasen, the joker of the team, the heart that had lifted them all—his smile came slower now. Less often. But he still tried. Still cracked a pun when tension thickened the air too much. He hid his dread in sarcasm, but even that mask was cracking.
And Sira Meln. Precise, disciplined, relentless Sira. Her hands no longer trembled, even when returning from recovery missions with fewer people than she'd left with. Her trust in the mission was replaced by sheer force of will.
But Arron? He was fracturing.
Each failure chipped away at something vital. The council's pressure was unrelenting—an invisible rope tightening around his neck. Whispers followed him in corridors, like venomous winds:
"Abandon this madness."
"It's a dead end."
"You're wasting lives."
He tried to push forward. Tried to rationalize the losses as steps toward discovery. But doubt crept in like mold—quiet, insidious.
The Door haunted him. Towering and perfect, forged of a material no scanner could identify, sealed with energies older than the known universe. It shimmered without heat, pulsed without rhythm. It was beautiful, and it was merciless.
After the 200th mission—when yet another team failed to return, their signal vanishing the moment they passed through—Arron found himself standing alone before the chamber. The thick air chilled his lungs. Light from the containment ring bathed the floor in eerie ripples. He looked small before the vast, sealed gateway.
"I'm not sure I can do this anymore," he murmured. His voice, normally steady, was barely a breath.
Footsteps behind him.
Vema's silhouette appeared, her face tired but steady. She stepped beside him and placed a gloved hand on his shoulder.
"Every failure brings us closer, Arron," she said softly. "The Door isn't punishment—it's a test."
He didn't respond, but her words lodged somewhere deep.
Moments later, Riven joined them, his blade resting at his side.
"We stand with you. Every life we lost—we carry them. Their steps brought us here."
Then came Lior, rubbing the back of his neck, a faint grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Besides, who else would put up with your obsessive ranting about metaphysical architecture and ancient signal harmonics?"
Finally, Sira appeared, her expression unreadable, but her voice firm.
"You don't get to break. Not yet. We're still here."
Their words weren't grand speeches. They were tired, frayed ropes tossed across the void. But somehow, that was enough to hold him.
Time passed differently after that. Weeks bled into months. The team grew smaller. More missions, more loss. Sometimes they retrieved a suit, sometimes nothing at all. The walls felt closer, the air heavier. Grief became routine.
Arron stopped keeping count of how many times he rewrote the sequence patterns. How many simulations he'd run. How many times he stared at the shimmering glyphs on the Door's surface, hoping for a sign.
And then came attempt 201.
It was meant to be a test of harmonic alignment protocols—a routine calibration. No one expected anything.
But as the team prepared the chamber, the lights began to dim—then pulse. Not erratically, but steadily. Like a heartbeat.
The Door, dormant for so long, shimmered brighter. The glyphs glowed like stars on ancient stone.
Arron's heart slammed against his ribs. "Status?" he demanded.
Vema's fingers flew across the console. "Energy levels are stable. The Door... it's resonating. It's responding."
A low hum filled the chamber, rising to a soft, melodic rhythm—like a song they'd never heard, but somehow recognized.
"We've done it," she whispered, eyes wide.
Riven took his position at the entrance, blade drawn but low. "Prepare for anything."
Lior's hands were already checking equipment, but for once, his mouth stayed shut.
Sira scanned the feed, her lips pressed into a line. "All systems green. No anomalies. Yet."
Arron stood frozen. He looked at his team—scarred, hollow-eyed, but standing. Standing with him.
The Door's center glowed, swirling like a ripple on glass.
This was it.
He stepped forward, heart thundering, pulse in his ears.
This wasn't the end.
It was the beginning.
End of Chapter 3